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No more Harambe memes -- it's time to let this rest in peace

Posted: 1:56 PM, Aug 23, 2016

Updated:2016-08-23 19:56:04Z

By:
Mike Canan

Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden

<p>Harambe, a Western lowland silverback gorilla.</p>

I was at the Forecastle Festival, a music festival in Louisville last month. In the middle of the Avett Brothers playing a song, a group of about eight 20-somethings started chanting: “Harambe! Harambe!”

It was an absurdly out-of-place moment.

As weird as the incident was, it was one of the more benign protests over the western lowland gorilla’s death in May.

The memes and trolling had become too much. The result will be less knowledge about the Zoo’s animals — including some endangered ones — spread out into the world. How can that be a good thing?

And here’s the thing: I firmly believe that no one regrets Harambe’s death more than the staff working at the zoo who actually knew the gorilla.

Harambe was agitated and violently dragging a 3-year-old boy who had fallen into his enclosure.

If you haven’t seen the video, watch it here before you meme:

I’m sure killing Harambe was not an easy decision for Maynard and his staff members.

I’m sorry internet trolls, but the Cincinnati Zoo staff care more about gorillas, conservation and Harambe than you do.

I believe Maynard when he says the trolls and hackers’ incessant attacks on the Zoo are difficult for his grieving staff to handle.

Many of the memes are intended as jokes. But they’re not funny. It is sad that a beautiful, endangered animal is dead.

And besides being hurtful to people who genuinely care about animals and conservation, the focus on Harambe is misguided.

Internet trolls and meme creators: Find something better to do with your time.

If you care so much about endangered gorillas, have you — like the Cincinnati Zoo has — spent any time, effort or money to help protect gorillas?

According to the World Wildlife Fund, the primary threats to western lowland gorillas are disease, habitat loss in the Congo Basin and hunting.

Where is the outrage over gorillas killed by hunters? Harambe was one gorilla. A 2009 BBC investigation
found that as many as two gorillas PER WEEK were being killed by poachers, just in one region of the Republic of Congo.

And while protecting endangered gorillas is important, what about children?

Most of the trolls and meme-creators probably aren’t Cincinnati residents.